


Mural

by ImperfectOrphanage



Category: Subarashiki Kono Sekai | The World Ends With You
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-26
Updated: 2017-07-26
Packaged: 2018-12-07 09:47:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11621040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImperfectOrphanage/pseuds/ImperfectOrphanage
Summary: Sanae wasn't sure exactly what to do with the mural above the WildKat...---Joshua origin fic, mentions of abuse, and suicide.





	Mural

The chime above the WildKat rang out a melody of several notes as the door swung open and slowly shut on a spring. In the foyer of the café-dripping wet with rain-was Sanae’s favorite little misfit. He nodded to Joshua and motioned for him to come sit at the bar. It was far past time for students to be out, but Joshua was never one for rules. He settled on the middle stool of seven, and leaned forward on his folded hands.

“What’ll it be?”

Joshua was quiet. He stared at the laminated menu on the counter and gave a great, overly dramatic sigh as he pointed out the usual. It was dinner at the café again.

“Comin’ right up, kiddo. What happened to yer face?”

Rolling his eyes and tossing his blonde hair back, he snorted.

Sanae shook his head and turned away to enter the kitchen in the back. He always had a plate sitting out this time of night in the usual case of Joshua’s showing up. It was a rather boring meal of soup and crackers with a side of lemon water. The barista dished it up and carried it out to the boy on a tray. Joshua was looking off into the distance, one leg propped up on the stool next to him as he gazed at the door.

“So,” Sanae sat the meal down, “what happened to yer face?”

Again, he didn’t say a single word. He turned on the stool, sat politely, and bowed his head for a silent prayer. Once the food was blessed, he took a bite, made a face, and continued. Joshua crumbled the crackers into a fine powder and sprinkled it on the soup.

“Not talkin’, eh? That’s cool. I was workin’ on a new mural.”

Joshua continued to eat.

“Yeah, I thought’d be a good idea to put somethin’ fresh above the café. ‘course, I gotta finish Udagawa first and maybe I’ll do something near the park. I don’t know-“

“He hit me.”

Sanae fell quiet. He began drying cups near the small sink.

“I deserved it, I suppose.” Joshua took a drink of water. “I should have kept my mouth shut.”

The barista nodded, not wanting to interfere. Instead, he watched the boy’s face and took in the new and old injuries. There wasn’t a spot on his face that didn’t have a mark. He had an old scar on his left cheek from a burn with a curling iron. Next to it was a slice from being backhanded across the kitchen. On the other cheek was a wide, near star shaped scar with angry edges. It pulled taught at his skin and he often scratched at it without thinking.

Next to his right eye he’d gotten a tattoo. Joshua had saved up for it for months. It was a simple treble clef in black ink with tiny stars around it. He had little freckles over his nose from too much sun, a soft mole near his eye on either side, and a new spread of fresh injuries.

“I called his new girlfriend a whore.”

Sanae laughed. “Aight.”

Lavender eyes looked up from behind a pair of thin framed glasses. There were still droplets of water on the glass.

He took the glasses away and rubbed the lenses on the edge of his shirt. “Go on.”

“What is left to say? He got angry. He called me a jealous little slut and he slammed my face into the wall by my hair.” Joshua slurped at his soup and sighed. “It’s good today.”

“It’s good everyday,” Sanae said, and set the glasses down. “Do ya need a doctor?”

“No,” Joshua poked at the soup, “it hurts, but I dare not seek attention. If he found out-“

There was nothing more that the angel wanted than to crush the skull of Joshua’s so-called father. The man was abusive even without the use of drugs and alcohol. He would bring in several different women and men to fuck around with, and from the age of two, Joshua had been part of the deal.

Joshua didn’t appear to be phased by most of it. He was incredibly controlled in emotion, and the only scars he seemed to have were on his face and body. The children at school would tease him about it to the point that he simply wore a mask around his mouth during school hours if he didn’t have time to put makeup on to cover it.

Or, if his makeup had been stolen again and destroyed. Such was the case of the curling iron.

“Lemme see,” Sanae reached out to touch a particularly swollen bruise near Joshua’s right eye and the boy flinched. “Shit. He broke the blood vessels in yer eye. C’mon, let me-“

His hand was slapped away and Joshua glared at him. “No.”

“Kid-“

“Why, Sanae? Why should I care? Perhaps I’ll get an infection and die. It would be for the best.”

“Don’t say it.”

“Why not? My mother is dead, my father is a…there are no words for him…I have no friends outside of you and though I enjoy your company I would rather be on the other side of it.”

The other side meant the UG.

“Probably not fer the best, kiddo. C’mon, lemme have ya stay over.”

Joshua shrugged. He continued to eat until the soup and crackers were gone. With his belly full his eyes were drooping, and eventually he agreed to stay the night on Sanae’s futon. The kid had his own personal kit with toothbrush and floss, and an array of makeup and jewelry he could use. There were times he spent several days in Sanae’s care, and only went home to make sure his father wasn’t dead and to retrieve new clothes.

Every time, however, he returned with new bruises and burns.

The barista hated to see his surrogate son in a shit situation. He couldn’t do anything except be there for the kid, since meddling in the affairs of an individual wasn’t allowed. If it had been, he’d shoot a stream of Noise so far up Joshua’s father’s ass that the man would be vomiting static.

Joshua had finally fallen into a fit of slumber on the futon. He didn’t look at all comfortable.

“I know y’said not ta,” Sanae whispered, sitting on the side of the futon. “But I can’t leave ya in pain, Josh.”

He smoothed his fingers over Joshua’s face and the boy relaxed instantly as Sanae pushed him into a sleep so deep he wouldn’t wake until the angel wished it. Sanae unbuttoned the pale shirt from neck to navel, and he spread it out over Joshua’s body. The sight was one of horror.

Joshua’s stomach and chest was covered in fingertip bruises and cigarette burns. At his hips were crescent shaped cuts in sets of four on each side.

A pain curled in Sanae’s chest and he hissed. He slowly undid Joshua’s trousers and slid them down and off to the floor. The bruises continued on his thighs and ankles. He didn’t want to look, but curiosity made him take a glance between the fabric of Joshua’s boxers and his nethers.

Shit. Oh, fuck.

“C’mon, yer gettin’ a bath,” Sanae said, and he lifted the boy up to carry him to the small bathroom in the back of the WildKat. It was a shower stall and sink, with a small toilet stuck between them. He set Joshua in the shower and undressed him, careful not to hurt the boy as he cradled him in his arms.

Blood and semen smeared the washcloth and Joshua’s breath hitched. He whimpered in his sleep and Sanae brushed a chaste kiss over his forehead. “Shh.”

Despite his more feminine leanings, Joshua was a boy by birth. Sanae knew it wouldn’t have mattered what he was to his father. Joshua was a place to put his aggression and hate, and was as much of a human being as a rag doll. On Joshua’s slightly swollen penis were several bites and a couple of cigarette burns. The tip was torn and the prick was weeping blood, and it was obvious he’d been raped more than once in more than one manner.

“I’m sorry, kiddo.”

The barista continued to clean him until only injuries remained. He took Joshua back to the break room turned bedroom and set him down on the futon before looking for a pair of pajamas he knew Joshua had forgotten before.

His back was turned to Joshua as he searched, and he frowned at his inability to find the jammies.

“They’re in the suitcase in the corner,” Joshua said, voice heavy and tired. “Did you try and drug me into sleeping again? I told you to stop with that angel shit.”

“Yeah, I had ta clean y’up.”

Joshua sat up and the futon creaked. “You saw.”

“Yep.”

“I wish you didn’t.”

“Josh,” he turned, still knelt in the floor, “it don’t matter if I see it. I know it.”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Joshua whispered. He sounded like a child. “Please.”

“Kid-“

“Please, Sanae. It’s nothing.”

The words pissed him off. He flew to his feet and bent over the small boy on his bed. “Like hell it’s nothin’! Josh, I can’t sit here and watch ‘im fuck around wit’ ya. You’ve gotta do somethin’. You gotta tell someone and-“

Joshua shook his head. “He knows people, Sanae. If I were to tell it would be turned against me and I would be seen as an attention seeking, spoiled brat. He would kill me. Though, perhaps it’s for the best.”

“It ain’t!” Sanae shook him by the shoulders. “Josh, I ain’t gonna-“

The boy’s hand took Sanae’s wrist and gently pulled the hand off his left shoulder. “You can’t do anything because you’re not allowed. I don’t mind, Sanae. I know you want to. It’s enough.”

“Josh, c’mon…”

He smiled. “Oh, Sanae. How I love your dutiful attention.”

“I wanna smack you.”

“I know,” Joshua stretched his naked body and lay down on his side, “but you won’t, and that’s why I trust you to care for me. I am tired. Let me sleep.”

Sanae nodded. “Fine. Don’t catch a cold.”

It was too late to be heard. Joshua had already fallen back to sleep with a smile on his lips and a soft echo to his breathing.

Pulling the blankets over Joshua, Sanae left the room to get a cigarette and a bottle of coffee mixed with alcohol. He sat in the kitchen, pulling hard at the cigarette between large drinks of booze. If he thought about it, he was a lot like Joshua’s father, but he had restraint where the man didn’t.

He wasn’t allowed to do anything directly. He wasn’t allowed to imprint on one or two people.

But…there had to be something…something he could do.

_Perhaps it would be better._

No. He couldn’t kill the kid. It’d be against the rules and though he shared Joshua’s sentiment about rules and shit, he still couldn’t do it. But what if…no…no…he couldn’t.

“Fuck,” he hissed.

The clock ticking nearby reminded him to close the shop and he stamped the cigarette out before tossing it and the bottle in the trash. He swept up and cleaned the dishes before locking the door and closing out the cash register. Turning the lights off he locked the cash and receipts into the safe and he surveyed the room once more to make sure nothing was amiss.

Sniffing the air he caught the scent of a warm, wet copper, and it landed on his tongue.

His brain rolled through a list of possibilities. It could have been the remnants of the shower or he could have banged something and cut himself. Maybe someone left something similar in the trash and his tossing the bottle made the smell enter the air. There was no blood he could see on his clothes and fingers, and he growled as he walked to the bedroom to change his clothes.

The scent slapped him in the face. He glanced at Joshua and it took five full seconds for him to realize that the blood was coming from him. Not from any old injury, but from two long slices down his arms and at the femoral artery in Joshua’s leg. A note sat near his head, and it read in soft scrawling letters.

“I suppose you’re angry at me. I don’t blame you. Don’t blame yourself. Yes, I used your razor, and I made sure to wipe it clean for you. See you on the other side, Papa Coffee.”

Sanae threw the note aside in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding he pressed against the cuts.

It was too late. The blood had stopped flowing before he’d entered the room. It soaked the bed and dripped into the floor. Joshua looked like a pale beauty with his mouth cracked open and his eyes slightly open with a distant stare.

Ah. Sanae had an idea.

\---

“Well.” Joshua-looking nothing like he had in life-was gazing happily up at the billboard above the WildKat Café. His face was unblemished and his body was smooth and clean. Though a bit shorter than he should have been, he was petite and cute. “I love it. Is that me?”

“Yep. I made the red blue and grey, but that’s you.”

“Wonderful. I love it. Say, Sanae…”

“Every time y’start a sentence wit’ that line, I lose a feather.”

Joshua giggled into his hand. “Oh, you. Fear not. I was hoping we could talk about the Udagawa mural and the imprinting you’ve placed on it. I need something much stronger for Shibuya. She’s still quite fragile since I took the throne and I want her to be perfect. Now…”

The barista smiled. He loved to hear Joshua talk with such enthusiasm and passion.

Seeming to notice, Joshua blinked. “What?”

“Nothin’. Y’got somethin’ on yer face.”

“I do?” He patted his face. “Where?”

Sanae placed a finger to Joshua’s lips. “Y’glow when ya smile.”

“Really?” Joshua giggled. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. C’mon, let’s get Udagawa fixed up.”


End file.
